The Galton Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization's Transportation Technical Advisory Committee unanimously approved a $53,159 budget amendment to the fiscal year 2026 work program on June 10. The additional funding will complete the organization's first-ever Long Range Transportation Plan through consultant work on Geographic Information Systems analysis, enhanced population projection modeling, and expanded spring community engagement workshops in Belgrade, Bozeman, and Four Corners. MPO Manager Jeff Butts explained the costs arose when staff departed the organization and consultants filled critical gaps on a time-sensitive project. The amendment will be funded through staff salary savings, elimination of a second out-of-state conference, and a $20,800 allocation from reserves, reducing the MPO's reserve balance to approximately $59.
Committee members also received a draft fiscal year 2027 Unified Planning Work Program for initial review, with a vote scheduled for July. Butts noted that the MPO recommends returning two continuous traffic count stations it had planned to self-fund, citing difficulty locating viable sites and rising costs. New signal detection technology can capture comparable data while generating capital and operating savings. The proposed budget reflects significant facility costs of about $50,000 annually and leaves approximately $202,000 in reserves for the next planning cycle beginning in federal fiscal year 2027.
The bulk of the meeting focused on results from community engagement for the Long Range Transportation Plan project scoring process. Consultants presented findings from spring workshops where residents participated in budget exercises and map-based project planning. An online survey yielded 102 public comments emphasizing safety, multimodal connectivity, and inter-community links. The team filtered 1,100 initially collected projects down to 116 with sufficient detail for evaluation against 21 metrics aligned with six adopted goals. The committee will conduct prioritization workshops this summer and target plan adoption by November.